Thursday, December 27, 2018

I used some planner stickers to make the background trees. Everything else is stickers.
Had a card sketch on a group:

Here's the card I created:

And another card sketch:

The theme was supposed to be snowmen. This is what I created:

I couldn't do flowers with a snowman. I love how it turned out. It's basically a lot of paper layered and then some wooden snowflakes with some gems in the middle with a snowglobe sticker and a sticker that says 'festive wishes'
Here's a pocket letter I made:

I had to go really flat, as it was making it's way to Portugal. I cut out some monsters and added some eyeball stickers and heart stickers.
One I received:

She said it was her first one, I think it turned out pretty nice.
An ATC I received:

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

I signed up for a swap where we basically created something for the other person. I made a little Christmas book. I had these mini file folders, or I thought they were file folders, turns out they were just inserts. I used them anyway. I put them together like a book.

The front is a card that I trimmed down and then of course was too small, so I added some washi to the sides.

I had the background papers from a kit, so I just went through and added them where I thought they looked good. The first page has a red spot background, I added a strip of gold paper and a stripe of red/green plaid. The tag was cut from another card. The right page has a holly background, it has images of Christmas trees and Santa on it as well. I added a foam ornament I'd made along with some foam penguin stickers.

The left page has gold paper as the background. I fussy cut some trees out of another paper and layered them on. The right page has some sticky notes and snowflake stickers.

Left page has snowflake paper with a strip of green/red plaid. I made a belly band with the red spot paper and put in some stickers. Right page has a background that says snow. I fussy cut the poinsettias from another paper.

Left side has gold paper background, with a strip of the holly/Santa paper. The December is a sticker from a planner pack, I trimmed the ornaments off of it and added them to the bottom. The Santa hat was from a swap. Right page has red spot background with some vintage pom pom trim and a journaling card.

What I received in return:

It came in this cute stocking. Here's what was in the stocking:

And in the packages. The paper bag on the top left:

handmade bows and rosettes.
Next bag:

A selection of die cuts.
The unicorn bag:

It had a couple unicorn shaped paper clips holding the straws to it. It was filled with stickers and sticky notes.
The bag on the bottom left:

A bunch of trims.
The middle bag:

Trims, washi, cork pieces.
The large package:

It was an altered notebook. There was a pocket inside holding these items:

I like it. It was a bunch of stuff I like, which doesn't always happen.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

I signed up for a Christmas pocket letter swap. I originally didn't sign up, but they were short a person, so I decided to fill in.

The background paper is stripes. I used this adhesive ribbon I got at a garage sale for the bottoms. I tried to add something to every sticker I used. First row, first card is just a sticker and then a sticker between the two pockets. I wanted it to say Merry Christmas somewhere on it. Second card: I picked up these poufy house stickers at Hobby Lobby, sadly, they didn't stick very well. I added some snowflakes to the top of the card. Third pocket: this has a chipboard frame on top of a polaroid camera sticker that's spitting out an image of Santa. I added a car with Christmas tree to the frame.
Second row, these are all tags. First pocket: I added some bling on top of red that was on the tag and a star to the top of the tree. Second pocket: I added some snowflake bling to cover the hole in the tag. Third pocket: this tag is from a swap I did a few years ago.
Third row, first card: I added a poinsettia sticker and a twine bow on it. There's a sticker between the cards. Second card: I added a Gifts to buy sticker and a pile of gifts. Third card: I added an ornament sticker with a foam tree in it. I added a mini journal/book to the side along with some sparkly star mini ornaments.
The back:

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

I believe this was the first larger Christmas swap I signed up for and then got sucked into the others. This one we were asked to use gift bags, decorate them and make a garland for our partner. I didn't feel like finding gift bags, so I made my own:

Half of them are made with Christmas paper as the backgrounds and half are not. For some reason, I thought we only had to make 12, and then realized I needed 24. I cut down some Christmas paper to fit on the front of the bags, the 2nd set of 12 that I made has washi on the top and bottom of these pieces due to them being smaller. After making the base, I went back and decorated them, I like them, but I think I would have liked them better if I hadn't done more decorating and just left the larger Christmas papers on the bags. I bought the clothespins plain, and added the bows to them, and then made sure that the opposite color was on the bow as the number on the envelopes.
The second set of 12:

What I included:

For some reason, I felt that it shouldn't all be Christmas stuff, though there is more Christmas stuff than not.
Gift tag set, bling, handmade ornament, tag, tags, tea, ATC I got in a swap, sticky notes, homemade ornament and tags, pin I got at a garage sale, tags I got in a swap, stamps, ornament, deco tape, mini notebook, tiny doll, clothespins, mini clipboard, pom poms and altered paper clips, washi, hot cocoa, trim, cards, ornaments I got in a swap and an ornament from Hobby Lobby.
Here's what I got in return.:

I don't have a great picture of them. Basically she took a lot of paper and made packages with it. Not a lot of decoration, but that's ok.
Here's the first four days:

Saturday, November 17, 2018

I made one of these last year and then dropped out of the group I made it for, because of things. I proposed the idea to the moderator of another one of my groups and she posted it. The one she suggested was just a 9 sleeve pocket letter, but using a fuse tool to divy up the pockets into more. I suggested using three 9 sleeve pocket letters but just decorating the extra pockets, so people without fuse tools could participate, and because that's what I made last year.
As I was packaging up the one I made last year, I tied it together with ribbon, but then thought after mailing it, why didn't I just make it a file folder pocket letter, so that's what I did this year:

Again, I took a gift bag and used the front of it for the front of the file folder, sadly when I was attaching it, it stuck in the wrong spot and I had to pull it off making the lower right corner tear. So, I took some wood veneer snowflakes, colored them with a silver marker and then covered them with silver or blue glitter glue. When I first laid them down, they covered the whole bottom, but after putting the pocket letters inside the file folder, it made one side much more pushed up than the other, so I just attached the snowflakes to the more bubbled side. I also added some gems to the middle of them. I was going to add more gems to the sparkles under the sleigh, but then I decided that since the file folder was extra, I didn't really need to.
Inside:

I covered the inside with some paper from Hobby Lobby. I never know how to decorate the insides, I just stuck a bag and some hot cocoa in it.
First pocket letter:

I used some plaid paper for the backgrounds on all the pocket letters. I added mostly stickers to either the cards inside the pockets or the outsides of the pocket itself. The candy cane on the first pocket is gems. The 'merry christmas' is from a project life journaling card. The hats are from a Christmas kit. The reindeer is a very dimensional sticker, the merry christmas on the bottom is from a cupcake pic and the snowman is a tag. I had some cute ornament paper that I thought would work to number them, but thought they were a little small when I cut them out, so I just punched some 1" circles to layer them on. I couldn't find number stickers small enough, but realized I had some number stamps in my stash.

I went with a Christmas tree theme for this one. The first pocket has a die cut, the second and ornament from Hobby Lobby. The third, fourth, sixth, and eighth are stickers. The fifth is a tag I got in a swap as are the seventh and ninth. I added some washi to keep the goodies in in transit.

The goodies:

embellishments from a swap, stickers, altered paper clips, shaker mix, stamps, pins, magnetic bookmark, tea. I didn't put anything in the middle pocket as it was very hard to get open with the tag on the front.

The back:

I felt the plaid on the front wasn't very Christmassy, so I used Santa paper for the back.
The third pocket letter:

This one is a little more Santa themed. The first pocket has a reindeer from a cupcake pic, the second one is a tag, the third a wood piece, the fourth is a sticker, the fifth another wood piece, the sixth is from a cupcake pic. The seventh has a couple stickers, the last two, I used some foam trees to make a scene, I added a snowman button behind them and some snowflakes on top.

The goodies:

die cuts, stickers, wooden ornament, bling, foam trees, sticker, tiny ornaments, Christmas themed stamps. I did take out the candy cane bling because I thought it was too hard to get in that pocket as well.

Back:

Candy cane paper.
Second page of file folder:

Again, just covered it with paper. I added a little envelope with a note in it.
The card:

I just made a little 3x3 card with a sticker.
Back of file folder:

I thought this paper was very nice by itself, so I left it alone.
Here's what I received in return: